'Soldier for peace' Rabin buried

World, family pay tribute to assassinated leader

November 6, 1995
Web posted at: 11:55 a.m. EST (1655 GMT)

JERUSALEM (CNN) -- Yitzhak Rabin, a "martyr for peace," was buried Monday after eulogies by world leaders, including Arabs, who promised that efforts to end religious and ethnic
bloodshed in the Mideast would carry on despite the assassination of the Israeli prime minister. The final speaker, longtime Rabin aide Eitan Haber, held a blood-stained piece of paper containing song lyrics from the Tel Aviv peace rally Rabin attended just before he was killed. The burial in a hillside cemetery in west Jerusalem followed a two-hour memorial service that ended with the chief rabbi of the Israeli army chanting kaddish, the
traditional Jewish prayer for the dead. (198K AIFF sound or 198K WAV sound)

Jordan's King Hussein and presidents Bill Clinton of the
United States and Hosni Mubarak of Egypt also spoke to 4,000
invited dignitaries, some of them wearing blue caps they were
given to protect them from the sun's heat. Mubarak and King
Hussein paid tribute to the man who led Israel's forces in
the 1967 Middle East War and then sought a lasting peace with
Arabs. "You lived as a soldier, you died as a soldier for
peace," the Jordan leader said. Mubarak called Rabin a
"fallen hero for peace." (110K AIFF sound or 110K WAV sound)

Rabin had warned of assassination threat

Acting Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, who also spoke,
said Rabin warned him of an assassination threat as they
stood together at a peace rally Saturday, the night Rabin was
shot dead. (230K AIFF sound or 230K WAV sound) "You told me there are warnings of an
assassination attempt at the large rally. We did not know
who would strike. We did not imagine the harm would be so
great. But we knew we must not fear death and we must not
hesitate for peace," Peres said.

Clinton, who called Rabin a "martyr for peace" and "a man
completely without pretense," brought a smile to the slain
leader's grieving widow, Leah, with a story about a necktie. (295K AIFF sound or 295K WAV sound)
"The last time we were together, not two weeks ago, he showed
up for a black tie event on time, but without the black tie.
And so he borrowed a tie, and I was privileged to straighten
it for him. It is a moment I will cherish as long as I
live," Clinton said.

The only member of Rabin's family to speak at the service was
17-year-old Noa Ben Artzi, who called her grandfather a
"pillar of fire before the camp, and now the camp is in
darkness." (218K AIFF sound or 218K WAV sound)

"Ones greater than I have eulogized you but none knew the
softness of your caress as I," she said.

Confessed assassin has no regrets

Also Monday, confessed assassin Yigal Amir, 25, said at his
arraignment that he killed Rabin because Rabin wanted to "to
give our country to the Arabs."

Israel assigned 10,000 police, soldiers and security agents
to protect the world leaders and dignitaries to traveled to
Israel overnight for Monday's funeral. PLO leader Yasser
Arafat did not attend for security reasons. But in a
telephone interview with CNN from Palestinian-ruled Gaza,
Arafat mourned the loss of the man he called his partner in
peace. "I am very sad for this awful event which had
happened there in Israel, where I lost one of the most
important, courageous men in Israel," he said.

Syria did not send a delegation but President Hafez Al-Assad
condemned Rabin's assassination as a "tragic event,"
according to a senior Clinton administration official.

Procession took body through Jerusalem

Rabin's body was brought to the cemetery in a slow-moving
funeral procession. Six generals and two police chiefs
loaded his coffin onto a military vehicle covered in black
for the three-kilometer (two-mile) drive from the Israeli
Knesset, or parliament. Rabin's family followed the
pallbearers. Also in the procession was another military
vehicle overflowing with memorial flowers. The procession
moved slowly through downtown Jerusalem streets to the Mount
Herzl cemetery, reserved for prime ministers and other
national leaders and named for Theodor Herzl, the visionary
of the modern Israeli state. Among the Israelis who mobbed
the route to say farewell were hospital patients who ran
toward the street in their robes.

After the coffin arrived at the cemetery, sirens sounded
across Israel as the nation observed two minutes of silence
in honor of Rabin. (1.4M QuickTime movie)

Thousands of Israelis gathered Monday at the Tel Aviv square
where Rabin was slain, lighting candles and mounting a quiet
vigil. Thousands more huddled outside the apartment building
where the 73-year-old prime minister lived in the northern
Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Aviv. Leah Rabin came down to thank
the crowds, saying in a tear-choked voice that "two bullets
killed this great, wonderful man."

On Sunday and through the night, an estimated one million
people, in a nation of 5 million, filed past the coffin as it
lay in state outside the Knesset.